Meditation for January 30, 2008

From The Rev. Peter A. Munson

Genesis 16:1-6

 

Willingness vs. Willfulness

 

1 Now Sarai, Abram's wife, bore him no children.  She had an Egyptian slave-girl whose name was Hagar, 2 and Sarai said to Abram, "You see that the Lord has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my slave-girl; it may be that I shall obtain children by her."  And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.  3 So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her slave-girl, and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife.  4 He went in to Hagar, and she conceived; and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress.  5 Then Sarai said to Abram, "May the wrong done to me be upon you!  I gave my slave-girl to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt.  May the Lord judge between you and me!"  6 But Abram said to Sarai, "Your slave-girl  is in your power; do to her as you please."  Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she ran away from her.

 

 

Abram (later Abraham) was 75 years old when God called him to leave Haran and "go... to the land that I will show you.  I will make of you a great nation..." (Genesis 12:1-2)  Ten years later, Abram and Sarai (later Sarah) were in Canaan, but they still didn't have any children.  Where was this great nation to emerge from?  Abram even brought this up with God at one point.  "O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?... You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir."  And the word of the Lord came to him:  "This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir... Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them... So shall your descendants be." (Genesis 15:2-5)

 

Now admittedly, according to the Bible, the Lord did not reveal to Abram right away whether Sarai would be the mother of his children, or whether some other woman would.  But I am guessing that Abram assumed it would indeed be Sarai, despite the fact that they had never been able to have children up to this point.  So, in chapter 16, when Sarai comes to Abram and suggests that they try to have a child through her slave-girl, Hagar, you get the sense that they  - both Abram and Sarai, since he agrees to her suggestion - are starting to take matters into their own hands.  Sort of like:  "Well, God made us these great promises, and we left everything and came to this new land, and still we have no child.  So it's up to us to make it happen, because it doesn't seem to be happening the way God said it would!"

 

It is at such times, of course, that we can also begin to wonder whether we heard God correctly the first time.  "Maybe I thought I heard God's voice, but I really didn't.  Maybe all that was just made up in my mind.  Maybe I have been deceiving myself!"  Doubt can begin to creep in, especially when things don't happen on my timetable!  (Just an aside:  If you recall Genesis 3 - the serpent and Adam and Eve - and the temptation stories of Jesus in the wilderness in Matthew 4 and Luke 4, and The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, you know the one who is behind sowing these seeds of doubt!)  Anyway, when it suddenly seems to us that God is not following through on His promises, there is a huge temptation that comes to all of us, and it is called willfulness.  "I'll just do it my way!  The heck with God's plan!  I can't see God!  Where is God right now?  I have a good mind!  I will just make it happen!"  So we hatch a new plan, and move forward.

 

God, being God - with all his compassion and forgiveness and understanding of our nature and our frailties - can bring good out of plans that might not have been so good.  (Read on in Genesis 16 to hear about the promises God made to Hagar, and to the son that she bore, Ishmael.  Or, for an even better example, think about what happened after Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, as you read again Genesis, chapters 37-50.)  But having said that, we can really get in the way sometimes!

 

Abraham and Sarah did eventually have a child born to them, even though - at different times - both of them laughed in God's face when God put forth the proposterous notion that this would happen.  In fact, when Sarah said, "Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?", the Lord responded, "Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?" (Genesis 18:13-14)  When the disciples and others of Jesus' time thought that the wealthy were obviously the most blessed by God, and Jesus said "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God", they were astounded and said, "Then who can be saved?"  And Jesus looked at them and replied, "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God, all things are possible." (Mark 10:25-27)

 

That is the point, I suppose.  God can bring about things that you and I cannot bring about my ourselves.  We must do our part.  We aren't supposed to sit around acting helpless.  But it is also true that for us to act in faith, we must allow God to do the part that we can't do, the part that only God can do.  And to be people of faith, we must be williing servants, people who earnestly seek out God's will for us, as opposed to being people who are just obsessed with our own plans, "the best laid plans of mice and men", so to speak.

 

How can we cooperate with God and trust in the promises of God, especially in those times when it seems like God has left us to our devices?  The testimony of Scripture is that God doesn't abandon us; God doesn't leave us to our devices.  Just the opposite, in fact.  God is with us.  God is for us.  "I am with you always, to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:20)

 

Lord, help us to be your willing servants.  Help us to be faithful, and help us to seek Your face, so that we don't get in the way of your best plans for us.  And when we do get in the way - because we will - help us to come to our senses and repent, and return to you.  And help us start again.  Thanks for understanding who we are, and loving us anyway.  And thanks for calling us, and for being faithful to us and to your promises, and for believing in us.  Thank your for all that you accomplish through us.  Help us to follow in your ways, so that we can help you build your kingdom here on earth.  Amen.